Areas of Interest and Concern of the Design Office, the Client, and Society Among the models of the domain of design, perhaps most well known is Charles Eames’ diagram of the overlap between the areas of “interest and concern” of the design office, the client, and society. Eames’s model is sometimes erroneously described as “a diagram of the design process.” While Eames notes that the “areas are not static—they grow and develop as each one influences the others,” his model does not describe how design is (or should be) practiced; it describes where “designers can work with conviction and enthusiasm” [ 5].

Eames Design Process Charles Eames

1. If this area represents the interest and concern of the design office

2. And this the area of genuine interest to the client

4. Then it is in the area of overlapping interest and concern that the designer can work with conviction and enthusiasm These areas are not static - they give and develop - as each one influences the other.

3. And this the concerns of society as a whole

Putting more than one client in the model builds the relationship - in a positive and constructive way.

September + October 2010

interactions

are we making it? Who will use it and for what purpose? In Morris’s terms, “the relation of signs to interpreters.”

2. Semantic—The meaning or definition of the artifact. What is this? What art we making? What does it do? In Morris’s terms, “the relation of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable.”

3. Syntactic—The form or grammar of the artifact. How will this be? How are we making it?

In Morris’s terms, “the formal relation of signs to
one another.”
In a rational design process we might begin by
trying to understand why something is needed—
who will use it, where, and to what end; which then
might help define what is designed—the structure
and features that make it meaningful; and lastly
the definition of what’s needed might help drive
how the artifact looks and even how it’s made.

Of course the process is rarely so neat or linear. Discussion about what may also change the way we understand why, and prototypes of how very often affect the way we understand what and even why. Still we seek not just coherence within each level, but also between levels. The structure of form must map to the structure of meaning, and the structure of meaning must map to the structure of the context. These mappings do not flow in just one direction; they are reciprocal. The design process involves iteration, adjusting structures at each level to achieve coherence throughout.

In the late 1970s, Ockerse explicitly organized
RISD’s graphic design curriculum around Morris’s
model:
• The first year introduced students to form-
giving exercises.

• The second year added greater attention to meaning.

• The third year added practical considerations.

Meredith Davis has criticized this approach to design education, arguing the distinctions are artificial. She has proposed a curriculum that engages students in issues of form-giving, meaning-making, and context-negotiating simultaneously. In practice, however, the distinctions often correspond to commonly found responsibilities or “degrees of freedom” of operation.

Young designers typically find themselves working within a team structure where senior designers, managers, and clients have already negotiated many of the practical business issues. The problem at hand is “simple” in Horst Rittel’s terms, well understood—and already agreed—by the constituents. What remains is the working out of the solution within the established framework.

Also likely is that the message or feature set—the content, the information architecture, or the interaction sequences—have already been decided by others. Our young designer’s role is to make it “look good” or “professional” or “appealing” or even “sexy.” Doing so requires skill and benefits from training.